Cataracts
by Nocturnal Smile
Summary: Itachi deals with not only his fading eyesight and deteriorating health, but also how that affects his relationship with Kisame. Not to mention Kisame can be a bit of a well-meaning idiot. Kisa/Ita, one-shot.


A/N: Contains some spoilers about Itachi, so watch out for that if you're not mostly caught up in the manga.

Also, seeing as how Kisame hasn't really been shown outside of fights or demon container extractions, I took some liberties on how he'd act in private with Itachi. Actually, the same sort of thing applies to Itachi, too.

Reviews are loved! Heck, I'll even take flames if you have them. Mostly just so I can say I've been flamed. I haven't gotten one yet, which sort of makes sense since this is my second posted fanfic, but with the way some authors rant about them I'd started thinking they were a lot more common.

Warnings: Imaginary violence towards fangirls and a smidgen of yaoi. Okay, a bit more than a smidgen, but who's complaining?

Disclaimer: If at any time during the series an Akatsuki member begins to pine for his partner or his targeted demon container (or both), then yes, you can assume I have been given the rights to Naruto.

* * *

**Cataracts: **cat*a*racts- noun; Ophthalmology:

a. an abnormality of the eye, characterized by opacity of the lens. b. the opaque area.

* * *

They talked lovingly about rainbows, spouted admiringly about haloes, gushed about their favorite colors (usually all annoyingly bright), and cooed over anything fuzzy.

Itachi quietly concluded that they were all idiots.

They were the girls who he inadvertently ran into in every town he and Kisame visited and always got trapped into having a conversation with. Those conversations, without fail, always ended up with them asking him if they could have his babies/be his girlfriend/become his wife. Yes, in that order.

It would be simple to slit this one's throat, plunge a kunai into this one's heart, catch the other in Tsukuyomi, but it was always knowing the inevitable chaotic aftermath following those types of responses that prevented him. He knew he wasn't allowed to blow their cover for so trivial a reason as, "that girl annoyed me." That, and knowing what a waste it would be to use his Tsukuyomi on someone like them.

Itachi quietly concluded that they were all _irritating_ idiots, especially the one trying to gain his attention now, Yumi or Yumiko or whatever the hell her name was. Luckily she hadn't gotten to that point yet. But she was still annoying. The only thing they were good for was reminding him how lucky he was to have a partner like Kisame.

"Are you ready to go, Itachi?"

Itachi glanced over at Yumi, and smirked (inwardly, of course) seeing her wide eyes and hearing only her stunned silence. This was the same reaction most girls gave when faced with a near seven feet tall blue fishman. The giant sword strapped to his back didn't hurt the intimidation factor at all, either.

Itachi nodded to Kisame, and walked over to him with a grace born out of a lifetime of caution. It was only now that there was an extra edge added, a certain wariness that was recent and best shown by the way Itachi surreptitiously caught a hold of Kisame's elbow and used it to follow him out of town, Yumiko's cries to stay a little longer and hear about her new pet puppy fading in the background.

Those girls talked about colors and haloes, about fuzzy things without grasping the horror all those could bring for someone like Itachi. For someone who now saw the world the way Itachi saw it.

It had started slowly, the landscape in the distance not as clear, not being able to make out all the details about the birds flying overhead. Having to hold his books closer in order to make out the print, although he had read them just fine the week before.

Eventually, it had become what it was today: the market stalls blending into the walls behind them, colors bleeding out and erasing borders, where everything farther than a foot away from his eyes was fuzzy and turned indistinct, everything surrounded by a halo fashioned out of its own hues. Everything.

There was one way to restore his sight of course, but that involved using what had destroyed it in the first place. And it was never as good as it had been, his Sharingan drenched all before him in shades of red. He was so sick of being reminded of blood.

Kisame understood, for the most part.

"Itachi," he said gently, "we're here." He pushed open the door to their room in the inn, and Itachi followed him in silently, like always, until he started coughing. The fit made his shoulders tremble and his lungs burn, but it passed soon enough. He could feel Kisame's eyes on him even if he couldn't see them, could tell he was being analyzed by the way his head tilted to the side even if he couldn't make out the expression on his face.

"I thought you said you were better," Kisame said, almost chidingly as he closed the door. Itachi felt the urge to laugh at that, but it was too close to the finish to waste energy on showing emotion, on anything, so he only gave the customary Uchiha "Hn." He wasn't sure if the laugh could have come out of him without sounding bitter, anyways.

Kisame sighed, not as rebuked as Itachi would have liked. The blue man had grown too used to Itachi's less than friendly treatment of him, the monosyllabic replies normal by now.

"Well then, how're your eyes? They fine too?" Kisame questioned, placing an inflection on 'fine' that Itachi knew he was supposed to interpret as annoyance, but Kisame wasn't the only one who could not be reproached as easily as when they had first become partners. Itachi knew it was a cover for his concern.

Itachi opened his mouth to reply, but shut it with an embarrassingly audible click that practically echoed through their rented room when Kisame appeared right in front of him. He could see the dark flecks of goldenrod in his inhumanly golden eyes, make out the lines of his gill-like birthmarks, see the downturned mouth and the hint of sharp, triangular teeth behind it.

He could see all of it as he hadn't been able to for months, and that meant only one thing:

Kisame was too close to him.

"Kisame-" Itachi started, but Kisame began talking as if he had not heard.

"You're eyes are looking kinda cloudy nowadays, Itachi. I really wonder how well you can see out of them." His eyes were focused too intently on Itachi's, piercing Itachi as surely as a jutsu with the intensity of his stare. Itachi couldn't think of a reply under the weight of that gaze, found he couldn't- and didn't want to- move away from it.

It would have been too much like running, and he never ran. Not from Kisame. They were partners, equals, and one of the things that made them the most stable pair in all of Akatsuki was that they always put their opinions forward without despising the other for it. They shared an honesty that would have been suicide had it been attempted anywhere outside of this.

Itachi amended that. Usually, they put their opinions forward. The way Kisame was acting though, was strange, out of the normal pathways the ex-Konoha ninja had grown accustomed to. It was… unnerving, it made Itachi stay silent, watchful.

The swordsman lifted up a hand slowly, a smear of blue on the periphery of Itachi's sight, and placed it so that his thumb barely brushed the eyelashes of his left eye. Itachi's eye closed as if of its own will, and Kisame moved his other hand to brush Itachi's right eye closed.

His hands moved to cup Itachi's face, and the Uchiha barely dared to breathe, he didn't understand how they had come to this, him practically pressed against his larger partner with his eyes closed, Kisame's hands, trained for stealing lives out of those reluctant to give them up, cupping his face gently, so gently.

He didn't know when they had gotten to the point where he trusted Kisame enough to do this, didn't know when he had gotten to the point that he could feel Kisame's presence so clearly that Itachi felt his entire world narrowed to where the thickened pads touched his face, he didn't know when or why but it was happening regardless.

Something softer than callous tipped fingers brushed over his eyes, and Itachi held his gasp inside him. It moved over his eyelid, over the small expanse of skin and to his next eye, down and over his nose and finally rested on his lips.

Kisame's lips then, thought Itachi with a degree of shock. It started as a prodding sort of kiss, almost just to make sure the other's lips were really there, but they both grew tired of that quickly. He moved his mouth over Kisame's, there was a flick of tongue and one of them was groaning, then their mouths were open and everything was slickness and heat, spiraling black behind closed eyelids and Kisame pressing him against the wall, teeth tearing into his bottom lip to make Itachi moan from the pleasure/pain.

Itachi tried to regain control, tried to figure out when they had become like this, this closeness, Itachi could tell from the type of desperation that Kisame poured into the kiss that this was not the same fickle passion of a man searching for a woman-for-sale, this was like when they were on a mission in the Land of Waves and a sailor and wife were reunited after months apart.

When had this begun? Was it the relief for when Kisame chased the girls away, when he learned Kisame didn't like them talking to him? Was it when they guarded each other in fights, when- Itachi threw his head back and let out a muffled whimper, thoughts flying like autumn leaves caught in the wind. Kisame found a sensitive spot right below his ear, sucking on it, licking and nibbling his way down the rest of Itachi's neck.

He looked into Itachi's eyes, still opaque with cataracts, and Itachi gazed back, murmuring "Kisame…" more as a question, and then he was suddenly pushed back and panting alone by the wall. Kisame stood away from him, chest heaving and open-mouthed as though all the air in the room wasn't enough for him.

Kisame looked at Itachi, opened his mouth. Closed it.

Kisame ran out the door and Itachi watched him leave, staring at the now closed door in confusion and feeling a turmoil of emotions that, as a ninja, he should suppress; stared until he felt numbed and mute as shock overtook him until the coughing fit began again.

What had just happened?

* * *

Kisame did not come back during the night, nor the morning, but he was back a little before the afternoon, at a time when the sun steams the morning mists away and shrinks the shadows.

Itachi pointedly did not ask where he had been. He was lying on the bed, concentrated on his book as though Kisame had not just shuffled in, looking ashamed and unsure of himself. He had always been easy to read, Itachi could see it in the downward bow of his shoulders and hear it in the scuffle of his sandals against the floor, it made no difference to him that he couldn't see Kisame's face.

"Morning!" Kisame uttered loudly, trying to mask the awkwardness and his own uncertainty. Itachi eyes roved to him for a moment and went back to his book. Kisame chuckled, trying to break the tension in the air. "Bet you're wondering where I went last night?"

"Kisame." There was no question embedded in that word this time. This was a demand. Explain.

"Okay Itachi, guess we can't just forget about last night?" Itachi glared. "...That's a no then. Alright… You know that saying 'kiss it to make it better'? Well, it sort of got into my head to try it, but it went out of control." Itachi raised an eyebrow. "You were just- just there! Letting me kiss you. And I wanted to, you know, for a while now, but I thought you didn't, and, I mean-" Kisame let out an uncomfortable laugh. "I'm not good with words, Itachi. I think my explanation needs an explanation."

"I want you to explain why you left."

Kisame looked at him, surprised. "Why I… You said my name, and I thought, I knew I hadn't asked you, hadn't given you a chance to protest or anything-"

"Kisame," Itachi intoned flatly, "if I had been protesting, you would know because you'd be dead."

Kisame gulped.

Itachi set his book down, taking his time, and practically stalked over to see Kisame better and to say what was probably the most Kisame had ever heard him say in one sitting.

"You pointed out my weaknesses, and then you placed me in a position where I had to trust you. I did, Kisame." Kisame seemed to shrink in on himself, but his eyes were still riveted to the young prodigy, Itachi made sure of that. "Then you left, without an explanation for what had just transpired, for the reason behind it, or why you found it so distasteful you felt you had to leave with such urgency."

Kisame made a wordless sound of protest, and an emotion for once managed to work its way across the Uchiha's face in a form that was not amusement, he scowled and grabbed Kisame's collar, bringing him closer and slightly choking him in one move. Kisame spluttered in surprise and Itachi took a moment to appreciate the ludicrous picture the two must make, him a good foot and a half shorter than the man before him, slimmer by a mile but still the one in control. This time, at least.

"Don't give me some fairytale about trying to cure me with kisses, Kisame, I want to know the truth. You follow my orders in battle, and you will follow them here. Now tell me."

Kisame sighed. "I think you're wrong about the orders side of it, Itachi, because this is unfamiliar ground for you. You don't have as much experience with emotions as I do." Itachi glared and his Sharingan flared to life, but Kisame only shrugged and offered a small smile in return. "Though you probably do deserve an explanation, considering what happened."

Kisame reached down and removed Itachi's hand from his collar, Itachi allowing him, and smiled in a way that showed all of his teeth. It was the same smile he had when Itachi deemed a rampage appropriate, when he came to a decision and the time for restraint or caution was gone and barely a memory. Or when he had something over Itachi, like that time he discovered that even a 13-year-old prodigy is still a 13-year-old and likes to sleep with a stuffed animal now and then.

Itachi's glare narrowed suspiciously.

What Itachi didn't know was that it was not one or the other. It was a combination.

Kisame took a step closer, dramatically cutting down on the already small amount of space between him and Itachi. They stood toe to toe, Itachi gazing with mistrust up at Kisame while he grinned down. Then the swordsman swooped down and captured Itachi's lips in another kiss, using his arms to secure him, one around his waist and the other pressed to the back of his head.

Itachi squirmed, pushing on his chest, trying to get away. Kisame pulled back, enough to whisper, "I won't run away this time Itachi," against his lips and then his mouth was back against Itachi's and Itachi was torn between fire and reluctance, between what Kisame offered and a small part of himself he denied that feared being left alone again in this room he could not even see clearly.

Before he could make up his mind, Kisame trailed off his mouth and down the side of his jaw, licking and nipping and doing his best to make the Uchiha genius lose control. Itachi gasped, feeling him nibble on a sensitive spot, his eyes slitting with pleasure unintentionally.

"Nnnn… Kisame, wait."

"No," he panted in between kisses, "I've waited too long for this, I want you."

Itachi hissed in denial and Kisame pushed him back until they fell over onto the bed, the taller of the two lying on top without crushing him but enough to make his struggles useless.

"I want you because I love you, Itachi."

Itachi stopped struggling. He thought he'd been shocked before, but now… Itachi gazed wide-eyed at Kisame.

"…_What?_"

"What do you want, a whole confession? We're not made for those sort of things, Itachi, not for soft words, soft anything." Kisame chuckled, sharky grin snapped back into place. "I want you, love you, whatever, because I do. I know you. If you could, you'd kill every unwanted fan of yours, wouldn't you?" Kisame leaned closer, his breath stirring Itachi's eyelashes. "But I'm not dead, so that must mean I'm not unwanted, right?"

Itachi frowned at the bizarre logic and implications, opening his mouth to say something, anything, but it hardly mattered because all that came out was another string of coughs. Itachi turned his face to the side, choking on coughs and Kisame leaped off him, concern shining in his golden eyes.

It took longer than the other times to get them under control, and he felt the sickness rise up in him and stamp an ache in every bone, made his chest light on fire and ignite his throat. He felt his insides turning to ashes, his black flames turning on him and eating him from the inside out, eating up what was left of his vision so that black spots danced across his eyes.

He came to in Kisame's arms, sitting up and his partner rubbing his back as if he were a child.

Itachi pulled away immediately. Kisame looked at him.

"It's getting worse." Not a question.

"Hn." Not an answer.

Kisame put his face in his hands and made an exasperated noise. "Well… What are you going to do about it?"

Itachi stayed silent, feeling the burn inside and trying to assess how much time he had left to live.

"You are going to do something, right?" This was said almost accusingly, Kisame scowling.

"Sasuke's looking for me. I'll meet him soon." Again, not an answer. Not the type Kisame was looking for, and it wouldn't make sense until after he was dead.

"What does that have to with anything!?"

"Promise me you'll look after him, if you can."

"What!?"

Itachi leaned forward, his eyes without their red sheen but still not back to black, still coated with a worsening blindness. "Promise me, Kisame."

"O-okay, Itachi. I promise. But what are you doing about that cough? Are you getting any medicine?"

Itachi looked at Kisame, and thought, yes, I could have loved you, I probably do and just don't want to admit it, but it's not enough to live off of. There's too much at stake here. He reached up and traced the symbol on his headband out of habit, ignoring the slash through Konoha's leaf.

"It'll be taken care of along with my other business," Itachi promised. Kisame looked relieved, but not completely.

Itachi took another moment to gaze into those eyes, exotically golden and looking back at him, to memorize his partner's face, his stance, the way the sun highlighted his hair and one eye and made a shadow of the other.

No matter which way he went, choosing to run away or meet Sasuke for a final battle, he was doomed to lose this. He would lose this sight of Kisame, because he would either spend the rest of his life blind or die by Sasuke's hand within a week.

But he already knew which path he'd take, didn't he? He knew it, was resigned to it, and had come to terms with it long ago. He would enjoy what he could when he could, if nothing else, he learned that from his experience as a ninja.

Live hard and die hard, as the saying went.

* * *

Kisame laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing briefly before smiling down at him, teeth showing. "Time to go?" and Itachi nodded, following him out the door, hand on Kisame's elbow until Kisame repositioned it so that his hand was clasped in his partner's.

He looked down and saw their hands together, blue and pale white blending into one another somewhere in the middle, saw that between Kisame's hand and his own there was no border, and a single halo decorated them both.

Itachi told himself it had to be enough.


End file.
